Why is the United States constantly
at war? If we look at the last half century or so, there is hardly a
time when we haven’t been engaged in some major conflict with a purportedly
global threat to our very existence. The first such threat was Germany
(on twooccasions), and its Japanese fascist ally, two regimes whose
appeal was nationally-limited and whose inherent instability would have
defeated them in any case. The second such “threat” was the Soviet
Union, and what Louis Bromfield derided as the “international psychopathic
cult” of Marxist-Leninism – both of which collapsed under the weight
of their own irrationality as the 1990s dawned.

For a while, there was no Major
Threat in sight, and American politics soon reverted back to its pre-WWI
“isolationist” slumber. With the drain on our economic resources
stanched, investment – and its offspring, technological innovation
– picked up: the US economy took off, and we enjoyed an era of prosperity.
Unfortunately, this didn’t last long: a new Global Threat soon loomed
over the horizon – Islamism!

The 9/11 terrorist attacks
were a boon to the out-of-work War Party, and they certainly rose to
the occasion: twowars, two ongoing military occupations, and a great
swathe of the Middle East added to the American empire. And in just
a few short years! Great work, except there’s a few problems: we’re
bankrupt, saddled with a $14 trillion debt, the economy is tanking,
the real unemployment rate is easily double the “official” rate
of around 9 percent, and America has become Food Stamp Nation.

But don’t worry, Paul Krugman
has the solution. Speaking
with Fareed Zakaria
on the news program GPS, he posited the following scenario, riffing
off a comment by Harvard economist Ken Rogoff:

“Rogoff:
‘Infrastructure spending, if it were well-spent, that’s great. I’m
all for that. I’d borrow for that, assuming we’re not paying Boston Big Dig kind of prices for the infrastructure.’

“Zakaria:
‘But even if you were, wouldn’t John Maynard Keynes say that if you
could employ people to dig a ditch and then fill it up again, that’s
fine, they’re being productively employed, they’ll pay taxes, so maybe
Boston’s Big Dig was just fine after all.’

“Krugman:
‘Think about World War II, right? That was actually negative social
product spending, and yet it brought us out. I mean, probably because
you want to put these things together, if we say, “Look, we could
use some inflation.” Ken and I are both saying that
[Rogoff nods], which is, of course, anathema to a lot of people in
Washington but is, in fact, what basic logic says. It’s very hard to
get inflation in a depressed economy. But if you had a program of government
spending plus an expansionary policy by the Fed, you could get that.
So, if you think about using all of these things together, you could
accomplish a great deal.’

“’If we discovered that
space aliens were planning to attack and we needed a massive buildup
to counter the space alien threat and really inflation and budget deficits
took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months.
And then if we discovered, oops, we made a mistake, there aren’t any
aliens, we’d be better –‘

“Krugman:
‘No, there was a Twilight Zone episode like this in which scientists
fake an alien threat in order to achieve world peace. Well, this time…we
need it in order to get some fiscal stimulus.’”

The word fake is key
to understanding Krugmanian economics, which is what passes for liberal
or “progressive” economics these days: Krugman believes, like Keynes,
that, as Zakaria put it, you can eliminate unemployment by paying people
to dig a ditch and fill it up again. It doesn’t matter if workers
are engaged in productive activities, according to the Keynes-Krugman
crankery, what matters is that they’re in motion, and getting
paid to make those motions by the US government.

War, too, puts men in motion,
although it’s not the sort of activity one usually associates with
productivity – but you’re thinking in the old-fashioned way, which
insists on associating economic success with producing products that
people want to buy. Instead, Krugman associates prosperity with government
as the sole source and producer of wealth via the government printing
press. All we have to do, says Krugman – and Rogoff, who did not dissent
– is put the pedal to the metal and churn out more dollars. Then we
can pay people to dig holes and fill them up again – or, perhaps,
blast holes in Iran’s infrastructure and then pay military contractors
to “nation-build” once we get in there with the US Army.

Krugman’s canard about how
World War II dragged us out of the Great Depression has been debunked by economists on both the right and the left, but plain common sense
should alert the non-expert reader to the illogic of this view, let
alone its complete lack of any moral sense. Essential goods and services
were strictly rationed during the war years, and the relaxation of wartime
regulations and controls was bound to create an economic upswing relative
to what had gone before. Secondly, the rest of the Western world lay
in ruins in the aftermath of the war, while the continental US was spared:
this above all explains the postwar economic boom.

According to Krugman and his
“progressive” co-thinkers, if the US engaged in constant warfare,
and employed the non-military population in the “work” of digging
holes and filling them back up again, we could achieve permanent prosperity.
Just keep those government printing presses – or, today, pixels on
a computer screen – running at top speed. Contemplating Krugman’s
farrago of fiscal fallacies, I can’t help but think of Garet Garrett’s
prescient remark, made in 1950, that

“War becomes an instrument
of domestic policy. Among the control mechanisms on the government’s
panel board now is a dial marked War. It may be set to increase or decrease
the tempo of military expenditures, as the planners decide that what
the economy needs is a little more inflation or a little less
— but of course never any deflation. And whereas it was foreseen that
when Executive Government is resolved to control the economy it will
come to have a vested interest in the power of inflation, so now we
may perceive that it will come also to have a kind of proprietary interest
in the institution of perpetual war.”

Many conservatives who are
now coming to question the vast expenditures it takes to maintain our
overseas empire of bases and “interests” do so in the name of fiscal
austerity. However, lurking just beneath the surface of this economic objection
is the suspicion that the Warfare State is just another aspect of the
Janus-faced Welfare State – and that one makes the other possible.
Krugman’s remarks confirm this, which is why one should always listen
very carefully to one’s political enemies.

How else could one wage warfare
on that kind of unprecedented scale without expending unprecedented
sums of money – conjured out of thin air? The Fed gave the War Party
a blank check – which they proceeded to cash, and are still cashing,
rolling up record deficits.

“War becomes an instrument
of domestic policy” – the conservative Garrett, a former editor
of the Saturday Evening Post and a stalwart of the pre-WWII opposition
to the New Deal, saw the Age of Obama coming from a long way off. Now
that the distant threat has become a teetering colossus of empire threatening
to fall in on our heads, Garrett’s fellow conservatives (who were
deaf to his warnings at the time) are waking up to the threat. Have
they awakened in time to avert disaster? I would say: more than last year, but not
enough, at least
not yet.

I frankly don’t see much
of a political solution at the moment, although there are signs that
the anti-interventionist impulse in American politics is gathering momentum.
The two most powerful – and very often allied – Washington lobbies,
the military-industrial-congressional complex and the Israel firsters,
are determined the US will continue to spend more on the military than
all other nations on earth combined – and they will get their way.
They’ll get it because they have a vise-like grip on the political
establishment, but that’s just one aspect – and not the central
cause – of the problem.

The real mechanism that powers
the war machine is the Fed, a “privately-owned” [.pdf] central bank which
operates independently of Congress and yet enjoys a government-enforced
monopoly on the issuance of currency. The Fed can “monetize” the
debt simply by pushing a button on the government’s control panel,
as Garrett pointed out, and the President can push another one marked
“War” – and all without congressional approval.

Oh, the wonders of “democracy”!
If that doesn’t make you proud to be an American, then I don’t know
what will.

The short-term prospects for
peace and liberty are, frankly, awful: that the ruling elite is considering
war as a “solution” to our economic troubles is an option I
wouldn’t rule out by any means. Krugman has said this kind of thing
before, to illustrate his point, always followed by some attempt to
distance himself from the moral nihilism of the “war-is-good-for-the-economy”
doctrine. I’m not sure, however, that this squeamishness is necessarily
shared by the folks who are running this country, either now or in the
very near future – as I’m sure Krugman realizes.

I would also correct him on
his details: it wasn’t Twilight Zone, but The Outer Limits
that “The
Architects of Fear”
– the episode Krugman refers to – appeared on. In the original story,
the scientists plotting their hoax create a fake “alien” from among
their own number, who undergoes surgery and is then launched into space.
That’s when things start to go wrong: the “space vehicle,” which
is supposed to land in front of the United Nations, instead crash lands
in woods near his lab, where he runs into some hunters and is mortally
wounded. He staggers into the lab, where his wife has gone looking for
him – and he dies in her arms in the moment she realizes he’s her
husband and not some monster. The episode ends with this narration:

“Scarecrows and magic
and other fatal fears do not bring people closer together. There is
no magic substitute for soft caring and hard work, for self-respect
and mutual love. If we can learn this from the mistake these frightened
men made, then their mistake will not have been merely grotesque, it
would at least have been a lesson. A lesson, at last, to be learned.”

In the end, “The Architects
of Fear” is about how the best-intentioned among us – in this case,
a bunch of “peace-loving” “progressive” scientists – can embark
on a course that leads straight to disaster. It is a little morality
tale that pointedly underscores our modern dilemma, although not in
the way Krugman intended. The scarecrows of the various external “threats”
– the Germans, the Russians, the Arabs – and the “magic” of
the Fed’s money-creation machine have kept us in a state of constant
warfare and economic dislocation, with no relief in sight. Is there
hope? Yes, but only if you take the long view.

The central cause of the boom-bust-war
cycle is the Fed, which is the motor of the war machine and the creator
of the economic bubble that always ends in a painful bursting. Until
it is ended, or at least reined in, the buttons marked “inflation”
and “war” are going to remain on the government’s control panel
– begging to be pushed.

Short of ending the Fed, however,
there are definite steps we can take to alleviate the consequences of
these structural problems that will continue to bedevil us until either
hell freezes over or the
revolution comes.
While doing everything we can in terms of electoral politics, we should
not and must not forget the educational aspect of our campaign for a
more peaceful and freer world. That is our mission, here at Antiwar.com,
and it’s the only way forward for those who dream of a better day.

For over fifteen years, we’ve
been at the forefront of the battle against the War Party, and we’ve
had our ups and our downs. In the post-9/11 war hysteria, we stood alone
against the overwhelming current of public opinion and warned against
an over-reaction that would involve us in a series of futile, expensive,
and essentially unwinnable wars. History has since proven us right,
the tide of public opinion has since turned – and still we are here,
exposing the War Party’s schemes and debunking the propaganda that
flows from Washington non-stop.

We don’t have the tremendous
– indeed, bottomless – resources of the War Party: we can’t print
money. They can. What we can do, however, is to appeal to our
readers and supporters – you – for the funding we need to continue
our work. We can’t tax you – and wouldn’t if we could. We
can only ask that you make a tax-deductible donation to help keep the
War Party at bay.

That’s all we can do, short
of effecting “regime-change” in Washington: keep them at bay, restrain
them and rein them in, via pressure from below. And the only way to
exercise that pressure is to educate the American public about the realities
of US foreign policy. That is the task we have set for ourselves. Progress
comes, and then there are setbacks, but all in all we’ve been making
steady gains, especially among those who were formerly not reachable:
conservatives who are beginning to see the fiscal crisis as a crisis
of empire.

The main stumbling block to
an anti-interventionist candidate like Ron Paul, for example, is the
continuing ignorance and archaic views of those remaining conservatives
– the majority – who still cling to their militaristic views, which
are largely a legacy of the cold war. This is changing, however, albeit
not fast enough – and you can quicken that change by helping to support
this web site.

Politics isn’t everything:
indeed, successful political action is only the end result of
a sustained educational effort – and that is what Antiwar.com is all
about. Today is the first day of our Autumn fundraising drive, as you’ll
note if you go to the front page, and we are facing rising costs and
a significantly impoverished readership – because all of us are impoverished,
these days, except for the arms manufacturers and their lobbyists, who
are doing just fine. I frankly have been dreading the start of the drive
for weeks: with the economy in the shape it’s in, the thought of going
to the readers, one more time, and asking for their help is daunting,
to say the least. Yet it must be done: because the question of war and
peace is the most vital issue of our time, the resolution of which is
the key to winning the battle for fiscal sanity and recovering our economic
health.

Please: give as much as you
can, as soon as you can – because it’s that important. With maniacs
like Krugman, who has access to a column in the “mainstream”
New York Times, running around extolling war as an economic panacea
– without a horrified public shaming him out of the public square
– we are in some pretty big trouble. Won’t you consider making a
contribution toward fighting the Paul Krugmans of this world?

Keynesian make-work projects were brilliantly parodied in Hermann Kasack's novel, Die Stadt Hinter Den Strom, "The City Across the River". In the City, there are only two industries. One factory grinds concrete into sand, while another makes concrete from sand. Keynes was Nazi Germany's favorite economist.

After 5 months of looking for a job I would gladly get paid to dig a hole and fill for a month and be able to buy two weeks of groceries for me and my wife. Sounds less pointless and less harmful than the insurance job I had before that was actively scamming other people.

Hell, even WWIII is starting to sound OK. After a decade of corporate war propaganda I already tune it out….

Disappointing, the usual libertarian boilerplate and cliches. That anti-militarism is great but the rest is historically and economically ignorant, although Raimondo admittedly does know more about science fiction television than Krugman. The purpose of this site is to fight the "Paul Krugman's" of this world? I have donated to this site for years, and I will no longer do so. Leave it to the tinfoil hat Ron Paul types. Progressive anti-militarists do not belong here.

I always find it amazing how "leftists" are first-class cheerleaders for hardcore Keynesianism. They apparently do not realize they are just being tools and for special interests.

Guess the logic goes like this:

Bankster: If I get people to print money, my shares keep high and I can get filthy rich before the years is over. Everything will implode after that, but, hell, that's not my problem! I can trot out Krugman to defend this, that guy really loves his position in the spotlight.

Leftist: If the government stops printing money, then all the jobless, the people in inner cities and the people on welfare checks will starve to death. Better keep this ball rolling, Stimulus Now! Also, FDR.

Now we get "leftist" ad hominems for arguments. You fatuous libertarians seriously believe that you are not being used by special interests? Ignorant, presumptuous nonsense, characteristic of born again Ayn Randers. I could stomach it if not for the shrill pomp of them all including Raimondo, and in the end the only thing you will only prop up is a system you feign to despise. (Suckers)

I am out of here, and I encourage all other progressives to pull their support from this site. Leave it to the Ron Paul and Bachmann types. Enjoy your prayer in schools and abortion restrictions.

Ok, Mr "Of Unknown Politicial Affilition" here, I would exhort you to get off your Napoleonic bully pulpit and stop exhorting Other People of Unknown Politicial Affiliation to do "this" and "that", amalgamate Ron Paul and Ms. Bachmann, throw in school prayers (like anyone cares about those) and abortion restrictions (couldn't care less) and the obligatory Ayn Rand Reader (never read).

Forty years ago today, on the morning of Sunday, August 15, 1971, the US president, Richard Nixon, declared the inconvertibility of the dollar into gold. The 20,000 tons of the yellow metal deposited in Fort Knox in 1944 had decreased substantially due to the high military costs of the Vietnam War. The United States — the leading global economic power — could not honor its financial commitments.

As a result, the Bretton Woods system officially ended, and the dollar became a fully fiat currency, backed not by gold but by the promise of the government.

This meant the end of a historical and monetary rule that, from the dawn of civilization, had made money a general medium of exchange and also a store of value. It began a new era of historical abnormality — that of fiat currency and central-bank monopoly, where the ability to provide credit and financing becomes as boundless as the production of legally enforced paper printed by the issuing bank.

With the burial of the last vestiges of the gold — that "barbarous relic" of the past, in Keynes's words — the annoying limitation on the creation of money and credit was broken. Human needs, as well as political demands mobilized through democratic majorities (and minorities), are infinite.

Why stop spending? Why sacrifice immediate pleasures? The new fiat currency, devoid of intrinsic properties, releases governments from their commitment to convertibility, granting unlimited powers to the rulers of this statist system. With the burial of sound money, Keynes stands as the prophet of a new era of enjoyment and excitement under the new gospel of spending. Fiat money helps to remove the link between production and consumption, contributing to the delusion that the ineradicable scarcity of capital has been abolished.

My god! You want to return to a gold standard? There isn't enough of the stuff to provide credit to get all the work done that needs to get done. Would you get rid of leveraging, too? Welcome to the 13th century England. You could base the value of the dollar on a basket of international currencies, thereby insuring relative stability and guaranteeing a certain level of value, but don't go back to the gold standard.

In fact, the credit/debit system would work fine if unlimited credit wasn't available for financing wars, providing corporate subsidies, bailing out failing banks, and maintaining a Federal Reserve system that charges interest on the treasuries it buys. What matters in the credit/debit system is what the credit is used for (does it go to increase the wealth of society?) and the rate of interest (if too high, credit is to be refused). You are throwing out the baby with the bath water if you get rid of the credit/debit system. For one thing, if you are seeking to fund a project that may take ten years or more to realize a benefit, how could you ever find financing? Creating credit enables you to do the long-term things–the education of young people, the expansion of alternative energy, energy conservation. You go back to the gold standard and you have Scrooge McDuck, puffing on his cigar, asking why he should underwrite a talented engineer's education. We don't need that kind of return to the past.

It's well to read Rogoff's book…"This Time is Different" in which he and his collaborator examine eight centuries of sovereign monetary history. Any sane person faced with the facts will conclude that no time is different…and all times are driven by humans. Until the aliens arrive or we mutate into a new species with different qualities, it will ever be thus.

I'm a fan of Sagan's "pale blue dot" perspective:

"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

"There isn't enough of the stuff to provide credit to get all the work done that needs to get done."

You've obviously done the math so tell me: EXACTLY how much gold is sufficient to "provide credit to get all the work done that needs to get done"? Or in other words, what is the ratio of gold per person?

Since you have no problem with Krugman's "war is good for the economy" doctrine, we'll just sign you up for the "Kill the Space Aliens" army, along with Kommander Krugman: the both of you can hurl devalued US dollars at them. As an example of the limousine liberal left's blind sectarianism, "KMH" is unsurpassed: and if I were you I wouldn't talk about "shrillness." Pot-kettle-black.

That's supposed to be what? A threat, a wakeup call, a rally slogan? Krugman, being a progressive militarist, doesn't belong here either. Yet, being progressive, he's somehow recuperable if he decides to back less militaristic progressive endeavours, unlike "tinfoil Ron Paul type". While antiwar is not progressive and, I understand, you lost all hope to see them convert, it's time for them to be punished, progressives' patience is wearing thin. Especially in an Obama, the peacemaker, full fledged progressive era.

I have my doubts the progressive community was heavily sponsoring antiwar, even if it did much better and credible job against the war in the ogrish Bush II era than most others. Wars "inherited" by the Great Progressivist himself only to be… expanded.

Those who don't accept the empty shell dogma have to suffer. Disgusting but logical.

All I read above is an admission the progressivists are well aware they serve special interests. Their nonchalance must be fueled by their perception of being "in power" with the Obama-Clinton duumvirate. Activism in its rawest (read basest) form.

The aliens have arrived. And they call for war against aliens on… human societies' resources. Obviously the aliens studied and learned well the humans' history and identified the supreme weapon to deal with them(us).

Of course, the aliens don't realize the secret and ultimate goal of the universe is to have intelligent life dig ditches just to have them filled up again and then continue to call themselves intelligent lifeforms.

Take a course in macroeconomics 101 and get back to me, Justin. Krugman is simply commenting on the macro-economic realities of WWII spending in spite of what he states as its problematic negative social product spending. Krugman does not pay enough attention at times to the impact of military spending in his columns, but to rant on him as a militarist is pure, unadulterated BS. This is like the time you went after Colbert, because you never did your homework. No more support from me for your site, even though I always loved the anti-militarism of it. The ignorant, libertarian screeds like yours have put me off once and for all, and will likely do so for any other progressive anti-militarists who have supported you.

Also, you may hope one day you'll have an honest and meaningful job, without danger to lose limb or life or have your kin or "others" kin obliterated. It is not only a logical variant, but it's about the only hope to deserve the name. Otherwise, longer or shorter, more or less painful, it's still suicide, individual and collective.

Btw, let's consider the ditch was already dug and filled up, you get the pay and we cut the middleman company who'd have gotten the contract, the banks to finance it, the insurers, the agencies to approve it and so on. Deal?

They even award Nobel prizes preemptively (see the Obama case; and don't tell me peacemaking is not a science, it is, it has same reproducible results when experimented by differen tbut likeminded individuals, the peace-thru-war makers).

Much as I don't like some of the libertarian boilerplate rhetoric and posturing that one sometimes finds here, I advise against you leaving, or ceasing donations. First of all, it's relatively mild compared to other sites you might find on the net, and, except for the editorializing of certain individuals, is almost wholly absent. Antiwar.com is a great information resource, and does what it does better than any left wing site that I have run across. Obviously, Raimondo wen't apesh*t over something Krugman said, but was not actually advising the govt. to do. Raimondo should be more selective in his choice of subject matter, and his tag line about "fighting the Paul Krugman's of the world" was sophomoric. This is an antiwar site, not an anti-politically-incorrect economics site. Raimondo should also remember that economics is called the "dismal science" for a reason. Don't compound his silly mistake.
———to be continued——————-

—-continued————
Secondly, now is not the time (if there EVER is a time) for "progressives" to pick up their marbles and go home, simply because they are not comfortable with their playmates in the sandbox that is today's antiwar movement. To paraphrase one of my former political collaborators, "I'm uncomfortable with (x political type), but I'm not in politics to be comfortable." Their is a convergance between most "leftists," and a growing slice of the "right," on the intertwined issues of war and civil liberties, and some efforts to unify around those themes is starting to bear fruit (www.comehomeamerica.us). That momentum needs to be encouraged from both sides of the room. Hypersensitivity doesn't help.

——–continued————-
The most disturbing statement you made was "leave it to the Ron Paul and Bachmann types."
Really? Do you really think Paul and Bachmann are the same, on the issues of civil liberties and war? Bachmann is a recent "convert" to an antiwar view, and that only on Libya, and the depth of her conviction is probably a fraction of a millimeter. Bachmann supported every move Bush made, and voted for every dollar allocated to the wars. Ron Paul voted against the wars, and all the money. Bachmann voted to extend the Patriot Act, with the open encouragement of the Obama WH, just as she voted for it when it was the Bush WH touting it. Paul has voted against it consistently. As for abortion restrictions and the like, we can agree to disagree with the antiwar rightists on these issues, and even agree to meet on opposite sides of THOSE barricades in the future. Right now, THIS is the most important battle.

——and finally——-
Since you brought up Paul and Bachmann, this bit is aimed at Justin:
Shadow boxing with "the Paul Krugman's of the world" will avail you nothing. If you want to start a site comparing different schools of economics, go ahead and do it. THIS is not that site. If you want to start a fight that matters, go after Michelle Bachmann. She just edged out your hero Ron Paul in the Iowa straw poll, and is vying for many of the same voters. She voted to extend the Patriot Act, not Paul Krugman. She supported Bush's wars (and supports all of Obama's wars, except the new one, Libya), not Paul Krugman. She is the Republiscum establishment's answer to Ron Paul, a "deficit hawk" who nonetheless supports endless wars and repressive legislation, not Paul krugman. Get your priorities straight.

A couple of years ago, I watched again one of my favorite Outer Limits episodes, “The Architects of Fear”. As I was watching the episode, I was struck by how much the secret cabal was like the neocons. In contrast, Mr. Raimondo thinks that cabal was progressive. Perhaps Mr. Raimondo or myself is confused about the nature of these groups. On the other hand, it may be that there is not so very much difference between the progressives and the neons.

This is childish, Justin. I thought you were better than this. "Kommander Krugman?" Give us a break! Just because some economist says that WWII got us out of the Great Depression, doesn't signify that he wants WWIII. If he is wrong about that, prove him wrong. Don't engage in consequentialist arguments about how that might cause BHO to think he should attack China to save the economy, & his presidency. Economics is called "the dismal science" for a reason. In the meantime, the b*tch who supports all currents wars minus Libya, and voted for every extension and expansion of the Patriot Act, just beat your hero Ron Paul in the Iowa straw poll, by going after many of the same voters. Krugman is marginal, by comparison.

Look, Krugman IS against war. Let's be careful how exactly we criticize people. The problem is that because he is such a terrible economist, who literally doesn't know what an economy is, he makes the case for war despite his opposition to it. This is the main problem with Krugman.

Haha, Krugman is not 100% pure shrill pomp? He doesn't even back his arguments up, he just declares them true, and then deletes comments that credibly challenge him. I don't know exactly what kind of "libertarian" you think hangs out or works at Antiwar.com, but Randroids we ain't, and there is no way at all for us to be used by special interests. Unless you mean those whose interest is peace.

But please, by all means, go to a rally and cheer for middle-class-paid bailouts for megacorporations, rebranded as progressive policy. Obama 2012!

Krugman is not a "progressive militarist." Just because he thinks that WWII ended the Great Depression, that doesn't mean he wants WWIII. You are making the same stupid consequentialist mistake that Justin made. And what makes you believe that Obama is some kind of "progressive," or that "progressives" believe he is?

Like most limousine liberals, social issues are more important to him (her?) than such marginal questions as how many foreigners the US military kills. Why bring up abortion and prayer, of all things, when neither are mentioned in my column? And finally, I have great difficulty believing you've ever given us a penny.

How about no legal tender laws and let the best money win out?… A basket of currencies is still a basket of government controlled money used to manipulate the little guy. At least the little guy has a chance when there is no monopoly privileges on the money supply. You can't tinker around the edges of a problem and hope man's better nature wins out. Rothbard showed that no matter how much gold is in supply it is enough. People confuse the value of gold to the dollar as if the dollar is a unit of value when it is the opposite and always has been. Gold ( and other similar commodities) will always have value while currencies come and go.This has been proven time and time again.

And what is Obama, who are the progressivists and what they think Obama is then?

And, for the sake of argument, if Krugman is not militarist then his absurd yet so progressive "solution" makes him palatable simply because he's proposing more of the same poison only more disdainful of logic knowing the fall would be already much harder this time? For every miserable year snatched from an inevitable bleak and getting bleaker future we'd have to debate blatant if not criminal stupidity only because it smells and often is exactly the product of "progressives"?

Does Krugman oppose these wars, or doesn't he? If he does, then acknowledge it. Just because YOU think that his economic viewpoint leads to militarism doesn't mean that Krugman thinks it does. You have no business calling anyone a militarist unless he promotes war, period.

Limousine liberals? I've got news for you — most people who can't afford to travel in limousines care more about economic, and then social, issues, than they do about war. If that weren't true, they'd be marching in the streets against the wars. And that goes as much for the average "Tea Partier" as it does for the average Obama voter.

Activism is not good per se and often just turns into the kind of virulence I'm witnessing in KMH comments. Also, I did bother to underline we have here a primitive form of activism, just to differentiate a bit from genuine desire to get involved (without perceived benefits other than those that would be available for all).

No, I don't want more antiwar or any kind of activism. I'd like people to behave normally and logically, to be aware of their well being and who is attacking it, to act according to their conclusions, influenced as little as possible by any kind of outside pressure. Activism can become such an influence. I want people to be active on their own not to be prone to activation from others.

Kurgman is just slick. He is advocating militarism, while saying how much he is against it. He will "reluctantly" accept the need to militarize kindergartens, if that would take to save the bank-dominated economy. In a world where the "producers" are banks pushing mostly worthless papers, and calling them "financial instruments", all other forms of activity are merely accidental. Thus, Krugman cannot ever see the difference between the producing and destroying activities. To him, the economic impact is same. Well, that may have been the case in the twilight of Roman Empire, as the staying power of the elite and their continuous enrichment required manipulation of the system in their favor, with crumbs being tossed down to the population to keep it docile. Whenever an economy becomes divorced from the need to produce what people need, the distortions can be papered over for a short time.

9/11 and the fear factor will continue to fuel fascist amerikas blood lust ! As obomber and his fellow war criminals in congress and the military blow up babies, women and other brown people, the empire slides into the abyss !!!

"The first such threat was Germany (on two occasions), and its Japanese fascist ally, two regimes whose appeal was nationally-limited and whose inherent instability would have defeated them in any case."

The point wasn't their appeal. It was their malignancy and appetites. And as far as instability sabotaging them, both were conquering areas with enormous raw material – iron ore, oil, farmland. It could very well have been decades and massacre on even grander scale before they self-destructed, if ever. Wars are folly, but until everyone understands that, some will always need to be fought. You're taking this "war is health of the state" stuff too far.

Endless wars = uninterrupted flow of money to finance the war machine.

Let's dream the Congress could establish a ceiling for war spendings. But wait, that's the whole idea of krugmanism, there must be no limit to spending because spending creates the economic reality. If war was bad for economy then limiting spending for this purpose would be a good idea, but, since spending precedes everything and allowing unlimited expenses solves any crisis, limiting spending for war would make no sense once you have the option to throw how much money you wish to on anything you want. Wars take lives, true, but since the narrative says these aren't wars of choice then less spending can't stop them because undoubtedly vital American interests are thretened and must be defended. So, to be consistent with krugmanism, more spending for war can't hurt. Since there should be no ceiling for spending debt becomes irrelevant, it is unpayable and it isn't desirable to pay it back. The nation in motion will roll on like a perpetuum mobile. In its crippled universe, the forces krugmanism thinks has discovered look like being self sustainable, there are no consequences outside the frame it imposes.

Imo, it would be absurd to try a relity check within this kind of theory, if people can't connect palpable solutions for their very real problems – ranging from lives lost in endless wars to reduced quality of life (including the fear of getting ill or old) or precarious education – to the endless spending panacea it's only a sign of sanity, a kind of brain self defense. Or they're not progressive enough.

So Obama is a "centrist". In a left-right simplification it would mean he's neither to the left nor to the right. But is he progressive, at least redeemable progressive like Krugman (btw, Krugman is less or more "centrist" than Obama)?

If he is convictionless but supports krugmanism as the "packages" seem to prove it, then is he only reluctantly progressive?

Does it matter anyway if he's an "empty suit" if he does the progressive job? But indeed the most intriguing part is your preference for the greater evil, the one who is articulating (badly but probably with conviction) the theory of doom. Has the Krugman's theory the progressive stamp of approval?

You asked me what most "progressives" think of Obama. I told you. Some of them even think he is a closet "conservative." As far as my preferences, I would love to know how you know them, since I haven't said what my "preferences" are in this case. Stop projecting, and don't attempt mind-reading again.

"Limousine Liberals?" This is beyond ridiculous. I am ashamed I have been giving money to this site.

Sorry, I cannot take someone seriously who equates "macroeconomics" with "fantasy economics." You are a polemicist Justin, and only a mediocre, unoriginal one, where catchy simplistic notions mask your intellectual laziness and basic ignorance. Have you thought running for congress in the Tea Party banner? You would fit right in.

The practice based ondirect action to effect changesin social conditions, government, etc.

"People behaving normally and logically?" Are you aware that it is abnormal for people to behave completely logically? And what is "outside pressure?" Do you think if we shut ourselves up in a sealed room, and think about things, we will come to "normal and logical" conclusions? And how is anyone not going to "be prone to activation from others?" If I knock on someone's door and convince someone to come to a Ron Paul rally, is that person not being activated from outside?

Yes, that's activism and it often manifests itself as a form of pressure, sometimes with fanaticism, and usually develops a kind of group pressure for activists themselves who feel compelled to keep on replaying the tried and tested routines.

People don't behave logical all the time, but it's quite scary to bring that as an argument for exposing them to constant activism.

We can be influenced and that's what education does, especially at younger ages, but we become more the masters of ourselves when we exercise critical spirit. I don't believe information about, let's say, a cause represents even a small quota of the activists repetitions. If someone doesn't have the capacity to understand another one's arguments then it is immoral to pursue indoctrination. If someone isn't interested going beyond a decent informative attempt is dubious. As opposed to a debate where participants are somehow equally interested in what's going on, the convincing activists attempt to disseminate is superficial at best.

I'd regard with suspicion strangers who come knocking on my door to try convincing me on anything. I think human society offers sufficient means to pass the message with more respect for others lives. How's the message recepted, that's another issue.

You asked me what other people think. I have heard all these things from "progressives." Do you want me to lie, instead? If so, just write down what lies you wish to hear, and I will gladly send them. And by the way, few "progressives" think that Obama has done the "progressive job." Hate to disappoint you, but only Republicans, and those to their right, think of Obama as a "progressive" at this juncture. It's all a matter of perspective, I suppose.

The question doesn't work for me since I don't want gold to be the basis of our currency–nor any other commodity. Gold has little intrinsic value, it's only good for jewelry. The only reason people buy it in troubled times is tradition, pure and simple. Asians–especially Chinese–have a long tradition of keeping their wealth in the form of coinage. Arabs, too.

Imagine the trillions of dollars of commerce carried on every year. Gold or platinum can't back them up. Gold was basis of money during the British Empire, but was displaced for the very reason I described: there wasn't enough gold to back up loans–not for the Empire, not for the world. You might read Ellen Brown's book, Web of Deb, to get a better understanding of money.

If people believe money must be "backed up" by something tangible like gold, then you have to have enough gold to "back it up with" in order to run a credit system. Sure you can make gold be worth a million dollars an ounce, thus making burglary a common way of becoming rich, but that solution won't work on a world-wide scale. A basket of currencies, if juggled to make sure inflation is played down, is a solution to individual governments playing games with currencies. I would favor it as a reserve currency. As for a national currency, the US could issue dollars to be spent within its borders to fund infrastructure development, student loans, and the like.

I can't help what you can't take seriously,. That aside, the Austrian economists have shown that the "macro" and "micro" are not separate spheres, but are in fact intertwined, inextricably so: see Ludwig von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit (1912). As for your claims about what "most people" care about: I think, again, you tend to separate out spheres that are connected. "Most people," when they contemplate the three wars we are fighting, are thinking: Gee, I thought we were bankrupt! Foreign policy has become an instrument of domestic policy, and these two supposedly separate realms overlap considerably — which is why I devoted a column to the subject of Keynesianism as a rationale for war.

I did indeed run for Congress, against Nancy Pelosi — no doubt one of your icons — long before the tea partiers made their debut.

Malignancy is more commonplace than you'd imagine. Idi Amin was malignant — should we have intervened in Africa to stop his malignancy?

Nazi Germany had no mechanism to ensure a succession of leadership, and Japan had only regional ambitions. More importantly, neither regime was energized by an ideology that had any sort of universal appeal: they were both forms of narrow nationalism, unlikely to appeal to anyone outside of Germany and Japan respectively. In the case of the Nazis, this meant their regime would be limited in its possibilities of expansion and short-lived. In the case of the Japanese, they presented no direct threat to us until we provoked them by imposing an embargo that threatened to strangle them economically. We basically fought the Pacific war in order to ensure that the British and the French held on to their Asian colonies (Vietnam, British enclaves in China and Malaysia). America, protected by two oceans, could have erected an impregnable defense without getting involved in the war: instead, we entered it, and in the process saved the Soviet Union — thus ensuring another fifty years of conflict, this time against the commies.

The author's mention of the Outer Limits episode got me to thinking about this Star Trek episode:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddo…
—
"The crew of the Enterprise visits a planet whose people fight a computer simulated war with a neighboring enemy planet. The crew finds that although the war is fought via computer simulation, the citizens of each planet have to submit to real executions inside 'disintegration booths' based on the results of simulated attacks. The crew of the Enterprise is caught in the middle and are told to submit themselves voluntarily for execution after being 'killed' in an 'enemy attack'."
—

Also, Ridley Scott wants to direct Haldeman's "The Forever War" – he currently has a writer making screenplay revisions according to internet.

Which "special interests" are using us? Who? Go on, conspiratoid. Inform us who it is. Leave the site. Go. Continue waging war on the economy, ignoramus. Keynesian/statist economics is largely being exposed as an utter fraud. No one really gives a crap about your views on economics anymore, because they have no basis in economic reason or fact. How many more trillions shall we pump into the economy before Herrs Krugman and Rogoff admit they know fuck-all?

Well… that's like arguing we needn't worry about ravages of a serial killer, since he'll eventually die himself. Regardless of whether the Nazis and Japanese militarists could've perpetuated themselves, certainly they'd savaged huge swatches of the world in prime seasons of their regimes. Where do we draw the line? I don't think we should or can go to war to remove every distasteful tyranny; our credit card won't afford any new world orders in our image. But Germany and Japan rained destruction on almost all their immediate neighbors; unlike Amin, they had world-class massacre capabilities, and exercised them. If we had done nothing, if we had sealed ourselves in a remote citadel, however impregnable, could we live with ourselves? How many more millions would've perished?

"If people believe money must be "backed up" by something tangible like gold, then you have to have enough gold to "back it up with" in order to run a credit system. "

Why not? All credit is, is the extension of resources based on the borrower's promise to repay an appropriate sum back in the future.

"Sure you can make gold be worth a million dollars an ounce, thus making burglary a common way of becoming rich, but that solution won't work on a world-wide scale. "

Oh noes burglary would run amok etc etc.

Why won't revaluation of the monetary unit based on market forces work on a "world-wide scale"?

"A basket of currencies, if juggled to make sure inflation is played down, is a solution to individual governments playing games with currencies. I would favor it as a reserve currency. As for a national currency, the US could issue dollars to be spent within its borders to fund infrastructure development, student loans, and the like. "

Why is it a "solution"? Why not just get the government out of currency altogether? So you're saying the "solution" to the current monetary situation is play-money issued by a cartel of governments, with econostrologists trying to pinpoint the "optimal" level of inflation?

Like two scorpions in a bottle, the Nazis and the Soviets would have destroyed each other — and the world would have been spared the cold war. Also spared: many of Stalin's millions of victims in the USSR and Eastern Europe. There would have been no Vietnam war, no Korean war.

Where do we draw the line? We draw the line at intervening in other people's wars and meddling in their affairs: — a firm, clean, bright line.

And what is that progressive job to be done, in your view? Why is it so difficult to affirm something if you believe in it? The way you present it, progressivists never (well, at least not in the last 30 years or so) had their way, the closet conservative Obama and the (at least) "centrist" Bill worked hard for… anyone but progressivists.

I believe it is always possible to predict doom if you don't take steps to oppose or support this or that cause or side. Sometimes these predictions may prove right. But the opposite is also true and some predictions might prove wrong. In the first case you regret you didn't take action, in the second you regret you did. Would be great if knowing when to act was a clear cut choice. It seldom is the case for countries/human societies. And almost always there are dishonest motivations which trigger what choice they pick.

There is an asymmetry though between interventionism and non-interventionism. The second doesn't involve immediate consequences falling on your head for your actions. If a person drowns and you don't attempt to save her doesn't place you in a favorable light, but at least there's no chance of drowning along attempting to save her. What if there's a law compelling you to attempt to save? (there's an embrio of such a law in some states – non-assistance of a person in danger – which sounds totally absurd in my view) If most people's choice is not to risk their lives for another, what logic and legitimacy would have a law compelling them to? Aren't governments given this kind of power with far more reaching effects for the common people? But of course. And wouldn't be wiser for those governed to stall as much as possible the "eagerness" those in power tend to manifest in using these means almost everytime?

The first line of defense is inside one's mind. I plead for a world where people would be harder to be convinced about anything pertaining to governments' actions, a world of skeptics regarding politics.

It wouldn't be a column by Justin without the required Two Minutes Of Hate For Keynes, and anybody who advocates his policies.

Nevermind the post World War II economic boom brought about by Keynesian polices, which was killed by the financial liberalization advocated by the likes of Friedman starting in the '70's. Nevermind Friedman's favorite military junta for forcing his ideas down the throats of an unwilling population in Chile.

Anyway, as far as the Warfare State goes, I'm in favor of two years of universal enlisted military service for everybody. No class exemptions for people with money. Nobody can become an officer without doing at least 2 years of enlisted service first. I would serve in that kind of a military. And then cite Nuremberg as my reason for refusing any deployment to Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya.

What was unique about Vietnam is that it was a colonial war fought by a citizen army. It eventually helped foment resistance to the war effort. The military has now been transformed into the kind of mercenary army empires have used throughout history. Thanks to the anti-war movement the draft is not likely to be used ever again. This has paved the way for the poverty draft. All branches of the armed services in recent years have had no problem filling recruitment goals and have had to turn away people looking to the military in an increasingly jobless economy. Of course, the top military brass doesn't want anything to do with a citizen army anymore for the democratizing effects it can have.

If we're going to be an empire, then we might as well do it in the most democratic fashion possible, with universal conscription, rather than by way of a poverty draft.

Krugman is a fool. If we start making war preparations to fight aliens, what would happen if the real ones heard the broadcasts and showed up in force? Or even worse, showed up and backed the Muslims as their puppet force to rule Earth on their behalf? Better idea – let's not go there.

Krugman is an economist and a good one, I don`t think Justin knows much about him so he has made up this straw man so he can say SOMETHING. Krugman`s position…….is that WWII was
an example, although and extremely negative one, of government spending that ended a depression.
His point is that a stimulus program targeted at projects with the highest economic multipliers would be all the more effective…. but instead the government is pursuing disastrous budgetary cutbacks. the result
of which will soon be all too apparent.
Yes, I`m a progressive but I won`t be leaving this site. I appreciate Justin for his writings about areas he knows about
and I`m quite able to sense when he`s completely lost.

I'm "presenting it" the way various "progressives" have presented it, which is what you asked for. You didn't ask ME what I thought. Personally, i think BHO is an empty suit who cares little about the things he professes. But, if you want an example of what "the progressive job" might be, let's take the example of healthcare. A "progressive" would work for a single payer plan, or at least a partial single payer plan. No "progressive" favors individual mandates, which create a captive market for private insurance firms, particularly without a public option to create low cost competition for them. BHO professed to be in favor of "single payer," but colluded with various "Blue Dog" Democroaches to take it off the table. He then attacked the idea of individual mandates (like Romneycare, & Switzerland), then said it was okay with a robust "public option." Then he retreated further, and proposed a smaller, eventually vanishing, public option. Only Republiscums could call the final result "progressive."

So, knocking on your door and trying to convince you to vote for Ron Paul is somehow showing dis"respect for others lives?" How so? We are talking about peaceable behavior, which just happens to be a form of "activism." You sound rather frightened by the real world. Activists are people who are committed to their positions, not just armchair absorbers of information. Justin Raimondo is a libertarian activist. You seem to think that any commitment to anything more than armchair discussion is somehow violent.

I bring up the fact that people are often illogical, not just because I think it requires "Activism" to convince people of the importance of an issue, but because it is important to understand that your opponents in the corridors of power are the same way, and don't simply stop what they are doing because they heard a logical argument against it. Logic never started a war, and it has never ended one, either.

A third reason I bring this up is to introduce the problem of bounded rationality. Neoconservatives did not encourage these wars because they are especially irrational beings. They are as "rational" as their opponents. Their goals are different, that's all. Politicians are "rational" about maintaining power, and much of their "rational" thought is directed towards that aim. Nothing is ever accomplished by pure logic, except perhaps in mathematics.

Next time you see some activist repeating slogans, just remember that it's just to get people's attention. It is not some attempt to "indoctrinate," as if they had the power. Talk to them, and ask them why they think it is necessary. You might learn something.

Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute. He is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, and writes a monthly column for Chronicles. He is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993; Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000], and An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard [Prometheus Books, 2000].